


Colour me Blind

by troubledtimes



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blind Character, F/F, F/M, M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-02-22 17:04:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2515217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubledtimes/pseuds/troubledtimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave strider lives in a world where, when people find their soulmate, their world lights up around them. Colour begins to appear in a world that was once dull, everything becomes brighter, more vibrant, everything around you changes from how you once knew it.</p><p>But none of this matters to him, it's not like he can see anything anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is, it just started writing itself in my head so I thought I'd put it down somewhere and here we are.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

It was the same sound in every classroom, paired with the quiet murmur of students that was quickly shushed any time they became a bit too rowdy.

You had these sounds memorised. They comprised nearly every part of your day and it nearly drove you mad. The same stuck up names, the same nasally voices. To be fair, you were thinking of one person in particular, no need to condemn the rest of the student body when it was just her who really grinded your gears.  
The way she spoke as if she knew everyone's dirty little secrets, the way she brazenly picked on the soft-spoken and defenceless, and god, you don't even want to get started on the way she obnoxiously extends her syllables until they're pretty much threading themselves through your eardrums.  
As if you have all the time in the world to listen to her speak, and you should be _grateful_. 

Though there was one instance, (you want to make it very clear that it was only _one_ instance, and that doesn't excuse her from the verbal assault she puts you through every other time she opens her mouth) where something she said was of mild interest to you.

"Hey everyone!!!!!!!! You'll neeeeeeeever guess what happened the other day." She spoke to everyone at your table, making sure her voice was loud enough to capture everyone's attention.

"What are you goin' on about now, Vris?" The boy to your right asked in a voice that wavered and lilted with an accent that you had never been able to place. You'd also never cared enough to ask.

"Eridan, you might as well stop listening now, because whatever I say will never have anything to do with you!" You can hear the shark-toothed grin in her words, and can feel the heat on your back as the sun glares through the window behind you, making the back of your neck burn uncomfortably. 

You rub eraser shavings between your fingers absentmindedly, waiting for the punchline that Vriska always delivers, usually at the expense of someone else at the table.

"Aranea found her soulmate!" She cried, loud enough to pull the attention of everyone in the classroom. 

You are twelve years old and you have only ever heard Bro use the word 'Soulmate' once. 

When you tried to press for details, lil Cal came flying at your face from his perch on the tv. Once you'd calmed down enough, Bro told you to 'shut up and eat ya dinner, yer all skin an bones.' So you continued to eat your Chinese takeout, and decided not to bring it up again.

You don't want to admit it, but you're kind of interested in finding out what Bro was trying to keep from you this whole time.

You could have asked Rose to look it up for you, but you didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that you were curious about that sort of thing. Not that you were curious, you just wanted to know what all the fuss was about because, and only because, Bro wouldn't tell you.

Honestly, the word 'soulmate' was pretty self-explanatory, so you don't really know why he treated it like it was some sort of federal fucking issue. And the idea of someone being mated to your soul kind of freaked you out a little, not that you'd ever tell anyone that. Especially not any flighty broads who would have a field day with it and no doubt relate it back to your deep-seated daddy issues.

You're brought out of your own mental argument with Rose about said daddy issues by a loud bang against the table, where Eridan had slapped his hands down. His rings scattered across his fingers dull the sound of skin against the wooden tables, taking away some of the flair, but Eridan more than makes up for that.

You hear his chair rub against the carpeted floor as he stands, and you feel his side brush against your shoulder as he leans into Vriska's space, who is sitting across from you.

"You're lyin', you good-for-nothin' idiot! Aranea _can't_ be Meenah's soulmate! Cro told me _he_ was Meenah's soulmate!" Eridan argues, his voice wavering even more as his volume rises.

"Of _course_ he'd tell you that! He doesn't want you to know how much of a loser he is, or how you'll end up being exactly the same! A big, fat loser!!!!!!!!"

You don't know what happens in the next few seconds, all you hear is voices raising, the sound of your teacher trying to calm the situation, and the sound of someone saying a quiet 'oof!' as you're shoved into the boy who was silently sitting to your left.

You feel the spindles of the boy's wheelchair as you quickly right yourself.

"Sorry Tav, getting caught in the line of fire here."

"It's fine, uh, I think it's safer over here, away from that line, anyway."

He pats your hand gently as you lean on his armrest, away from where Eridan and Vriska are being berated for insulting each other by your teacher.

You lean your head more towards the teacher's voice as she tries to calmly deal with the situation.

"Now, what exactly is the problem here?" She asks in an annoyingly soothing voice.

"The problem is that Vris is a big liar who doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut!" Eridan snarled, flashing the shiny metal glued to his front teeth. 

"You're just mad because your brother lied to you about having a soulmate like the sad, desperate person he is!"

"He wouldn't do that!" 

You could hear Eridan's resolve begin to crumble, as you shifted your weight closer to Tavros, so you were mainly facing the drama that was happening next to you.

"When Aranea came home, she told me the world had lit up where Meenah stood, and everything was brighter than she had ever seen! Did Cronus ever say anything like that?" She spoke as if the argument was over, as if she knew she had won.

"Why would he say stupid shit like that?!" 

"Eridan! Language!" Your teacher called, before sighing tiredly.

Soon enough, their conversation had caught the attention of everyone in the room, and everyone was throwing in quips about 'soulmates'.

"My mum said that when she met dad, her whole world changed!" 

"My dad told me that he found out that green was his favourite colour, all thanks to my papa!" 

"My mum said that she doesn't need a soulmate to make her feel alive!" 

The teacher quickly hushed everyone, and you felt relief when you realised that the sun was no longer scorching the back of your neck. What time was it even? Surely the bell should have rung by now. You were hungry, and even though Bro didn't always think to make you lunch; he had today. He'd even told you he was wearing his '#1 mom' apron you'd picked out for him with the help of Rose a few years ago.

But unfortunately, instead of being ushered towards the classroom exit, your teacher instead orders everyone to sit on the floor in front of her.

You hold on to the back of Tavros' wheelchair as he moves to sit up the back so he's not in anyone's way. You take a seat next to him and rest your head against the rubbery wheel of his chair. You can hear most of the class shuffling to sit in front of the both of you, some choosing to sit further up the back.

You feel a hand placed delicately upon your knee, and you know that Rose had decided to join you.

She doesn't sit with you in class anymore, though she was reluctant to part with you, ("you're not my babysitter Rose. I think I can handle not fucking up so badly that I end up drinking poison instead of water, on my own. My tombstone won't, and will never read; 'here lies Dave strider. He messed up, he messed up so bad and it's all Rose's fault.'") though eventually she'd conceded, and went to sit next to Kanaya at her Table Of Weirdos. Not that you really have room to judge, what with your Table Of The Disabled. 

Without counting you and Tav, you also had a kid with a major speech impediment. Which was a nice way of saying he had a lisp that could rival Kaa from The Jungle Book. 

Terezi loved The Jungle book when you all had watched it in class last year, even going so far as to sew a soft toy of Baloo the Bear to sit alongside her scalemates. Though she had to invest in the help of Kanaya and her older sister Porrim, because Terezi had no idea how to sew whatsoever. Also she was blind as a goddamn bat.

You don't really know why Eridan and Vriska sit there, you think it's because it makes them feel better about themselves, and also probably because no one likes them.

You sit there in silence for a few minutes as people get settled. Though as soon as everyone is seated, your teacher begins to speak.

"Okay everyone, so what do we all know about soulmates?"

One girl who wears a cat ear headband and mangles her words with terrible cat puns begins to speak up. 

"We all have one! Though some people find it hardpurr to find theirs than ofurs!"

"That is true! Very good Nepeta. Though it is more than simply finding someone you like. Look around you now, everyone, what do you see? Describe the colours out loud for me." She instructs.

There is a chorus of 'greys' 'whites' and 'blacks' around you as you sit still, feeling like an intruder on this conversation. Like you don't deserve to be here.

"Exactly! What you see now is only like that because you haven't met your soulmate yet! When you do, they say the world lights up in colours named things like 'green' or 'red' or 'blue', and that's how people know that they've found their soulmate." She explains slowly and your skin begins to itch.

"Do you have a soulmate, miss?" 

"I did once, yes." you can hear her voice betray only the slightest hint of emotion, and you feel safe in the knowledge that you will never have to worry about anything as trivial as that.

"So Vriska, when your sister says she saw her world light up, she was most definitely experiencing finding her soulmate." She changes the subject quickly, trying to distract the children. 

Vriska begins to taunt Eridan again, though before that can escalate, a voice calls from the front.

"But miss, what about Dave? He'll never be able to get a soulmate, he'll be alone forever!" 

You don't need eyes to be able to feel the room go silent around you, to feel the stares that pierce and pick at your stony, indifferent façade, trying to break through and get some sort of reaction out of you.

You won't give in to them. Even as the room becomes stuffy, and Rose's hand tightening on your knee feels like it's burning through your skin, you remain still. The shades on your face feeling like a shield against whatever attacks these esteem-hungry kids can throw at you because Bro taught you better than to give into that.

Because you are Dave strider.

Because you are Dave Strider, and you are blind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Dave is only young, and he's using words like 'fuck' but lbr he grew up around Bro I think that speaks for itself. I'm trying to use words like that sparingly though.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short time skip! This chapter really just establishes Dave's relationships with the other people in his life. I wanted to do this before he met John, because when I introduce a love interest right away, I tend to accidentally neglect the other characters and I really don't want to do that!!

You wake up on your fifteenth birthday to the light flittering in through your blinds. You feel the warm stripes the sun creates across your bare stomach, and you trace the shapes lightly with your fingertips.

You hear the cards of your clock numbers flip as the time changes, and you reach over to feel the Braille that has been punched onto each card to represent a different number.

It is 7:42am, and you have about eighteen minutes till your alarm goes off. You know Bro probably won't be awake, mainly due to his usual late nights after DJ'ing at the club, which should give you a good few hours to properly wake up without being ambushed by his usual shows of 'affection'.

You know he means well, but honestly, setting up trip wires for a blind kid really does nothing but annoy you, not to mention scare the shit out of you. But it's just the way Bro rolls, and if you've been taught anything over the years, it was to never question the ways of your Bro.

You swing your legs over the side of your bed as you sit up, and feel along your nightstand for your shades. Once your fingers come into contact with the cool lenses, you quickly slip them on.

The carpet under your feet is rough and scratchy, worn down over the years by the soles of your feet. When you'd been practicing your flash stepping is when it had worn down the most.  
You didn't flash step often, for obvious reasons, but in a place that was infinitely familiar to you, such as your apartment, you were able to flash step with ease.

Flash stepping wasn't the only skill passed down to you by your Bro, he also taught you how to work with the senses you _did_ have. He made sure you were always aware of your surroundings, and helped you hone your sense of hearing and spatial awareness to make sure you were never caught off guard.

You shuffle around your room until your feet encounter the soft fabric of the shirt you'd thrown off before bed yesterday.  
You bend down to pick it up, before pulling it on over your shades with little difficulty.

As you make your way down the short hall and into the kitchen, you feel along the grainy wall so you can tell when you are in the open space of the main room.  
It consists of a small tv, a table next to the door where Bro keeps his keys, and Bro, lying on the futon. You can hear his snores reverberating through the room, and you know that the deeper he is in sleep, the louder his snores are.

You let out a quiet sigh, as you turn right into the open space of the tiny area that makes up your kitchen.

Your fingers glide over the smooth surface of the counter, and you count five slow beats in your head, before you reach up and open the cupboard above you.

You had already tripped the smuppet pile that Bro had left in the cupboard yesterday, and you hoped that with his late night, he hadn't had the chance to reset it yet.

When the soft drag of felt doesn't immediately assault your skin, you breathe a sigh of relief and reach up towards the box of cereal you know is always kept in the same place.

It takes you only a few seconds to realise that the loud snoring can no longer be heard. You tense as you feel the body heat of another person invade your space.

"Bro." You say in greeting.

"Sup, little man." He claps a hand down heavily on your back, and you try to keep yourself balanced.  
He always does this, tries to throw you off, and you know if you falter he'll think you're losing your touch, becoming soft. Then he'll come down even harder on you for the rest of the week. Smuppet traps around every corner, you freaking out to the point where you become frustrated because if you could just _see where he was-_

"Aren't ya gonna be late for school or some shit?" 

As soon as the words were out of Bro's mouth, there were three even knocks on your apartment door.

"That'll be Rose." You say evenly as you forgo your cereal, and grab an apple instead. You can feel the bruises along its surface, but you decide it'll have to do.

Before you can take another step, the apple you were holding is taken from your hand, and another slips in to replace it.

"Pretty sure that apple was rotting, here, take this one." He says flippantly, so you don't get the ridiculous idea into your head that he actually cares. You know he does, and against your better judgement, you can't help but poke fun at him for his attempt at trying to make you believe otherwise.

"Aw Bro, that shit is just too sweet. Getting cavities all up in here. Mama bear Bro, feeding me like I'm one of your little rascal bear cubs-” 

"Alright, alright, now get out of here before I kick your ass. Ain't no cub a mine would leave a lady waiting this long." He pushes you towards the door, and you quickly shove your apple into your mouth and bite down, before grabbing the smooth doorknob. You bow slightly as you open the door, and you get a waft of sweet perfume, indicating it is, in fact, Rose waiting for you.

"Lalonde." You muffle, as you pull the apple out of your mouth, crunching noises filling your ears as you eat.

"Why, I thought you'd decided to make your own way to school, David." Her smooth voice reaches your ears, and you take a few seconds to process her words around the sound of your chewing.

"I like to enjoy the scenery as much as the next schmuck, but I couldn't leave you hanging like that. Shh, don't cry, I'm here, come rest your head on my bosom." You reach your arms out in her general direction, and she is quick to grab your wrists and lower them.

"How courteous of you. Though through my obvious emotional distress, I'd like to actually make it to school on time today. Kanaya is going to be presenting her outfits as an 'audition' as such, for a place in the drama club's costume department, and I would like to help her with preparations." 

You nod slightly at her, and turn to walk back to your room.

You decide that wearing the same shirt to school as you did yesterday is kind of gross, and switch it out for the first one your hands grab onto from your closet.

You hoped it wasn't one of Bro's 'ironic' shirts he sometimes left around your room, so you unwittingly wear a pink shirt with the sparkly words 'Pretty Princess' written across your chest all day. Again. 

You feel across your chest for any conspicuous glitter, and approve when you find none. You then shuck on some black jeans, and silently apologise to Rose for answering the door in your underwear. 

You grip the strap of your bag, and sling it over your shoulder, walking back out into the short hallway. 

There is a slight resistance against the front of your leg for a second, and you freeze, all of your muscles tensing as you feel yourself become encompassed by the plushest of rumps.

There is a high pitched noise coming from somewhere in your vicinity, but not from you, because you would never let such an unmanly squeal out of your mouth. Ever.

You attempt to kick the offending smuppets out of your path, and try not to recoil when an extra one falls and bonks you on the crown of your head.

"Happy birthday, kid." You can hear the smirk in Bro's voice as the springs of the futon creak when he sits down, and noise flickers out of the tv speakers. 

"Dave, I understand that your phallic trauma has paralysed you to some extent, but we really must be going." You continue to stand in your felt-covered shame. ”also, I have your birthday present in the car." You pull yourself out of your felt-covered shame and quickly follow Rose's voice to the doorway, shutting the door behind you.

\-------------------------------

You stride down the halls of your school, Rose leading the way.

Sometimes you like to obnoxiously use your cane, tapping loudly against the linoleum floor, knocking into people if they don't move out of your way. Though today you just aren't feeling it.

Rose stops you abruptly, but when you hear the sound of rubbery wheels against the floor halt in front of you, you don't question it. 

"Sup, Tav." 

"Hey, uh, Dave and Rose. Dave, happy birthday! I have a present for you if you, uh, want it, that is." You know if he could walk, he'd be shuffling his feet nervously right about now.

"Lay it on me, bro."

You note how rough his hands are as they grip onto yours, slipping something flat inside.

There are a few beats of silence before you speak up.

"Tav I appreciate that you don't seem to be bothered by the fact that I can't see, but it still stands that I can't fucking see. What is this." You wave around the note in your hand for emphasis.

Rose lets out a breath of a laugh, and you turn your ear towards her voice.

"What is it Lalonde, whats so funny?" 

"It appears dear Tavros here, has given you an invitation to engage in some 'sick fires' any time you wish." 

"I've been practicing, and uh, I wanted to show you, how much better I am at it now. So you'd better prepare, for the, uh, verbal smack down, about to go down, in your face." 

You can hear the grin in his words and you allow yourself a slight smirk. 

"Damn Tav, you really know how to make a girl feel special. I'd be happy to show you up with my sick rhymes." You hold out your hand in a fist, and wait until you feel the bony knuckles of his hand bump into yours, before pulling away.

"Well boys, on that note I really must be on my way. Should I tell Kanaya you said 'good luck' or some other variation?" 

"Tell her that I'm counting on her to make sure the production isn't such a fucking train wreck this year."

"I think I can manage to twist that into some sort of compliment for her." She says, as her long fingers guide your hand off her arm, and she manoeuvres you towards the back of Tavros' wheelchair until you are gripping it's worn handles. 

She abruptly leaves without so much as a goodbye, and the noises of slamming lockers and people talking becomes much more prevalent.

"You seen Terezi today?" You ask Tavros as he guides you to his locker, and then to yours.

"Uh, not today, no." He answers, but you are sidetracked by the way you can sense the considerable amount of space people leave around the two of you. You guess you should be happy about that, but sometimes it makes you feel as if there is a spotlight shining right onto you and you're screwing up your lines, people are throwing tomatoes and you can't catch your breath- 

"Dave?"

You stop completely in the hallway for a moment, disrupting no one as they all continue to give you a wide berth.

"Um, Terezi! Over here!" Tavros calls out. Suddenly the spotlight is being smashed into pieces as another person invades your space. "Oh I finally found the elusive Dave Strider! I wanted to say happy birthday to my favourite coolkid, before you got sick of hearing it!"

You sigh, recollecting your thoughts. "Too late 'Rez. I've been covered in bitches since I swaggered in. I can try to schedule you in for later though." 

"Something tells me you're lying Dave! Prosecution would like to know, where are all the bitches?" She asks, leaning closer into your personal space, feeling the empty air around you, and you assume she finally notices Tavros in front of you, before she questions, "would this be the first bitch?" 

"Hi, Terezi." 

"Oh! Hey Tavros. So how does it feel to be Dave's number one bitch?" She asks, and you can feel the nails of her other hand begin to dig into the flesh of your shoulder.

"I feel as if, possibly, Dave would be the, uh, bitch, in this situation." 

You let out a flat gasp as Terezi cackles in your ear.

"Wow Dave! You should have told me!" You can hear the smile in her words, meaning her alligator-like grin is on full display only mere inches from your face.

"Uh, guys, we're going to be late for class soon, if we don't, maybe, hurry up." Tavros reminds you as you grip your biology books in one hand, and Tavros' wheelchair in the other.

"Alright Tav, lead the way. See you soon TZ." You give a mock-salute in her general direction, before gripping Tavros' wheelchair again, and following him towards your homeroom.

"I'll give you your present later, Dave!" She calls, before tapping her cane along in the opposite direction.

\--------------------------------

Terezi's present, as it turned out, was nothing other than a shoddily sewn pyralsprite. (According to Kanaya's assessment.)

As soon as you got home, you felt along the dust-ridden shelves placed across from your bed.

They were mainly covered in weird dead things you'd found and preserved in various ways. It had been difficult, and you'd felt strange having the instructions on how to preserve dead things read aloud to you by your fancy-ass computer, which Bro had made specifically to help you with this sort of thing. But nonetheless, Pyralsprite now had a home next to the jar which held some kind of lizard.  
The only label you'd left on the jar was one in Braille saying 'lizard', so you guess you'll never know any more than that.

You move back through your room, feeling the obvious absence of heat in the winter. You decide to get under your covers to try and keep warm.

Smoothing your hands out on the fabric of your bed sheets, you move to pull them back, but as you do, you notice a heavy resistance on the the covers in the shape of a box. You run your hands over every inch of its surface until you finally find the small printed Braille label which reads; 'Happy birthday Dave. -Bro'

How sentimental of him.

As you rip off the wrapping paper, and toss it carelessly towards the end of your bed, you can't help but feel as if you already know what is in this suspiciously rectangular box. Your thoughts flicker briefly to the few shitty swords mounted on your wall. You feel along the note taped to the box and find that yes, it is a sword, given to you by the courtesy of your Bro, but perhaps it isn't as shitty as you'd originally been led to believe.

After you sit in awe over The Real Sword for at least twenty minutes, you recruit Bro's help to mount it above your shittier swords.

You pretend to marvel at the awesome job you no doubt have done, before Bro smacks you on the back of the head and tells you that Roxy and Rose are coming over for a birthday dinner of pizza and soda. 

A rare warmth blooms in your chest, leaving you with the faintest hint of a smile on your face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurrah!! We're past the slow intros! The story will hopefully pick up the pace in the next chapter with the last time skip (Dave will be 17), and the introduction of John! 
> 
> Also I have an idea of where this story is going now, so the rest of the story hopefully won't be as slow as this chapter was!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yay, John is finally here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last time skip. Fast forward a couple of years so Dave and John are both now 17.

Your name is John Egbert, and you are finally moving! 

You and your sister Jade have been helping pack up the house with your dad for nearly a month now, and the moving truck was coming tomorrow!

You slide your fingers along the shiny tape which holds one of your boxes closed.

It's 11pm and you should probably be sleeping before you have to get up early and drive all the way to Texas, but you're too excited to sleep!

You lie on your stomach at the end of your bed, daydreaming about what Texas could possibly be like, when there are three soft knocks on your door.

A hushed voice calls through the white painted wood. 

"John?" It's Jade, you guess she couldn't sleep either.

You've both always been similar in that respect, feeling the same way towards things. Hopefully she's just as excited as you are!

"Come in, Jade!" You call quietly, and not a second later the door is being flung open, as she bounds over and flops down onto your bed. The mattress bounces a few times under her weight, and you simply smile at her excited behaviour.

"You couldn't sleep either?" She asks, as she lies down next to you. Her dark hair splays out across her back, as her bright eyes sparkle at you expectantly.

"No, I mean we're actually moving! Like wow, it's actually happening! And so far away too, I feel like I should be nervous, but I'm not, I'm just excited!" Your arm hangs off the end of your bed, as the other props your head up so you can watch her reaction. 

"Me too! I think I might not be nervous because it hasn't actually happened yet, but when we get there I'm probably going to be a bundle of nerves!" Her hands gesture wildly as she speaks, and you can't help but notice movement behind her.

"John? Oh! Jade, what are you kids doing up?" Your dad asks from the doorway.

"Sorry dad! We just couldn't sleep!" Jade answers for the both of you.

"I know you were both hesitant when I told you we would have to move, but you reacted so well, and I am so proud of the both of you." He smiles at you and jade in turn, before turning back to the topic at hand. "Now kids, you'll thank me in the morning when you're not tired. Jade, come on, leave John to sleep."

Jade groans dramatically, before reluctantly walking towards the door. She acts as if she has weights strapped to both legs.

When Jade is finally settled back in her own room, your dad comes back to your doorway, but before he shuts your door he begins to speak.

"John if you are unhappy with having to leave for any reason, I can cancel the move. They can give the promotion to the other gentleman they were considering-" 

"No dad! Don't worry, I am totally okay with this move. In fact, nothing you can say could make me want to stop it from happening!" You sit up and square your shoulders to emphasise how super serious you are.

"Thank you, John." He says in a low voice and oh god you think he's tearing up. You need him to leave before he initiates father & son hugs. It's too late for you to deal with him, especially when he gets like this.

"It's not a big deal dad!" You say as you jump up from your bed, nearly tripping over your ghost busters pyjama pants. You move towards the door and grab it's hard surface, ready to shut it at a moments notice.

"I'm suddenly really tired dad! I swear I'm about to pass out. goodnight!" You shut the door before he can say anything else. All you see before you hear the click of the latch is his smile widening. 

Great, now he's probably going to bake at least three godawful cakes for you in order to deal with all his fatherly feelings.

You move back over your smooth hardwood floors back to your bed, and slide under your covers, before pulling them all the way up to your chin.

You're not nervous, you're really not. But you can't get the question off of your mind. 

What's going to change in Texas?

\------------------------------------

You are now Dave Strider. When did you ever stop being Dave Strider? You didn't.

Tavros had just lead you into class, and you were sitting at your desk to his right.

It had only been a few minutes according to the clocks infernal ticking, and Vriska had already made her way over to Tavros' table. It was only a few inches from yours, so you were able to hear every awful word she threw his way.

"What's up, Mr. Laaaaaaaame-o?" She sneered.

"Nothing. Same as, uh, usual." 

"Wow boring!!!!!!!! Not that I would expect anything less from you. You'll never find me doing the same thing more than once! Being boring is for losers! Are you a loser, Tavros?" You can imagine her leaning closer to him with every breath she takes.

"What is this, a dating website?" You snark, only turning your head marginally towards them. "Meet Vriska, she's totally not boring and also a huge bitch." 

"Butt out, Dave!!!!!!!! As if I would ever waste time on you. Now Tavros, I keep telling you, when are you going to admit you're a complete loser, and let me help you make you better????????." 

"No offense, Vriska, but, um, I'm pretty okay with where I am, that is, being a loser." Tavros answers with just a little more stammer in his voice than usual, and you hate knowing how uncomfortable she makes him.

"Vriska, can't you just take the hint that he doesn't want to join you in the upper echelons of being an asshole? And stop being so goddamn clingy, it's like watching a leech try to suck the life out of something but it can't grab on so it just falls off and dies. You are the leech, it is you." You don't bother turning your head towards her completely until you hear the slow sound of her shoes on the hard classroom floors. 

Once you feel her presence only a mere inch from you, you decide that hey, you've never confronted one Vriska Serket before. You wonder what will happen.

Your chair scrapes back against the floor as you turn to face her, forcing her to take a step back. You can't help but to be keenly aware of the silence in the room before Vriska speaks up again. 

You barely hear Tavros' feeble protests over her sharp-as-knives voice.

"You're calling _me_ clingy? To _Tavros_? Don't make me laugh!" She lets out a harsh cackle anyway.

"If anyone is clingy to him, it's you! I mean look at you, you couldn't go anywhere without him! He wouldn't even be able to stay away for one day because poor little Dave wouldn't even be able to function!!!!!!!!"

"Tavros can do what he likes, which is something you don't seem to be able to understand." You're suddenly more aware of the presence of your cane in your bag, metaphorically being the ball to your chain.

"Hah, yeah right! You cling to his wheelchair like a pathetic baby to its mother! Can you even do anything on your own? You can't even look straight at me, it's pitiful!" You feel your nails press into the skin of your palms, and you know for a fact that you are looking straight at her because you can feel her breath all over your face. 

"Don't kid yourself, Strider! And don't talk down on me as if you're better than me, because you're not!!!!!!!! You're just some kid who hides behind his stupid shades and has no life at all!!!!!!!"

Sometimes you hate Vriska Serket, especially when she's right.

\-----------------------

Except about the stupid shades part, your shades are cool as fuck.

\----------------------- 

Your name is still John Egbert, nothing that drastic has changed, except now you're in the car with your dad and Jade, starting your road trip to Texas!

Excitement swells in your chest as your dad pulls out of your driveway for the last time, and you take the last look at your house you will ever take through the pristine windshield of your dad's car. 

Your hands grip the leather seat beneath you as you try not to bounce in place.

"Goodbye house!" Jade calls from the back seat as she waves out the window, smiling brightly.

The sky is a light grey, and the road ahead of you is an ashy black. The trees you pass along the way are a combination of dark and darker greys. The sun is blindingly white.  
You wonder if the day will come when these three colours aren't all that make up your entire universe. You wonder if your dad's suit really is white, or if it's a mismatch of colours you couldn't even begin to imagine. You wonder what colour Jade's eyes are, what colour _your_ eyes are, but all you can see of yourself in the window is the same light grey you find every time you stare into your own reflection.

\---------------------

It's about two hours into your road-trip and okay, you're starting to get bored. Who knew twenty two hours of driving and seventeen games of eye spy at Jade's insistence, could be so boring!

You can't wait to see the sign telling you you're 'now leaving Washington', and you can't wait until it is twenty two hours behind you.

The road beneath your car switches from gravelly, to smooth, to gravelly again as you move between country and suburban areas. 

Jade and your father chatter away about the new house and your new school, which you will be starting a few days after you get settled in. The idea of starting at a new school sets a new bout of nerves to swarm in your stomach like angry wasps. You never liked starting over, it was hard, and when people didn't like you there was nothing you could do about it. 

You decided not to fret over it for the rest of your trip, you'd worry about it when you got there! After all, there was nothing you could really do about it now.

Once it began approaching nighttime, your dad checked you into a motel so you could make the last leg of your trip in the morning.

The guy behind the desk was burly and mean-looking. He spoke mostly in huffs, and grunts despite how gentlemanly your dad was being. He mumbled your room number, and you could feel his scowl on the back of your head as you followed your dad and Jade towards your room. 

The place was slightly dingy, you noticed when the lights had flickered on. Your dad looked around the room with disdain written clearly on his face, and Jade tried to lighten the mood.

"Don't worry, dad! It's all a part of the experience!" 

"That is a wonderful outlook to have, Jade dear." He'd responded, before checking cautiously under the covers on the beds.

You'd all settled in that night deciding you'd leave as early as possible in the morning, in order to get to your new house as soon as you possibly could.

\-----------------

It had been four days since you'd moved into your house, and boxes were still scattered all over the place. Your dad was dutifully sorting through them one at a time, deciding how he wanted to set up the house. 

Dad had decided which room he got first, and Jade had shoved past you, making sure she got second pick. You had gotten whatever was left, but the whole house was really nice so you didn't mind.

The deal you had made with your dad had been; a few days to settle in, and then school.

So here you are, your dad had just dropped you and Jade off, and you couldn't help but notice that your new school looked...boring, and old. You'd hyped yourself up about it and now when it didn't exceed your expectations, you couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed.

Jade doesn't stop to take in the scenery, she simply flies forwards towards the school gates, and you have to jog to keep up with her.

When a teacher greets you at the office, she's all smiles as she hands you your schedules. You find that your first class is biology. Oh, sweet! You love biology! As you begin to zone out and imagine the types of people in your class, Jade elbows you in the ribs. You let out an embarrassing squeak as she begins to pull you along, away from the nice office lady.

"Did you listen to anything she said? Do you even know where your homeroom is?" 

"Um, no?" You answer as she rolls her eyes.

"You're lucky you have me here!" She continues to pull you along, stopping every few feet to look at the room numbers on the doors scattered throughout the long hallway.

When she finally finds the room she's looking for, she shoves you inside after promising to meet up after class, shouting goodbye, and waving as she runs further down the hall.

You stumble into your classroom and stop at the front of the room.

All you see is a boy with shades on standing in front of a girl who appears to be yelling at him before your vision whites out. 

You scrunch your eyes shut and then they snap open as you stumble forward. Everything in your line of sight starts lurching and oh wow you think you're going to be sick. Your hands grip onto the first table you come into contact with and when you don't immediately pass out you're more surprised than relieved. 

You find yourself facing forward again, absently staring directly at the boy and the girl to his left. He's staring straight at you, or at least you think he is, you can't tell with those shades blocking his eyes. The girl apparently gives up trying to get his attention, and follows his line of sight to where you are currently freaking the fuck out.

You can hear a faint buzzing in the back of your brain, and your eyes start to go fuzzy, before suddenly everything is clearer than anything you'd ever seen before. 

It starts with a colour that reminds you of dirty things and you instantly hate it. It fades down the walls, completely replacing the grey that was once there. 

The buzzing in your head becomes louder as a colour that reminds you of a soft breeze on your skin, or the touch of cold water lights up the sky outside the smudged windows. You notice that the colour comes in different shades throughout the room and you don't think you've ever seen anything more beautiful. 

That is until after a colour fades into your sight that reminds you of the soft warm sun on a summers day, a new one appears.

When you see this colour you feel your heart beating in your chest, it is the colour of your pulse beating heavily under your skin as your blood runs through your veins. You look down to your hands clenched on the table and notice that your knuckles are white mixed with this colour, but not completely white like they used to be, not like _before_ , before you found your soulmate. 

The reality of what is happening finally settles into your mind, and your eyes snap up to where you first saw the colour of intense heat. The boys shirt is white and heated, like your knuckles, and you breathe in the stuffy air of the classroom deeply, trying to ground yourself. Your eyes trail over to the girl who is standing right next to him.

Her hair is a colour you are infinitely familiar with; black.

Her shirt is also black, and you can find nothing spectacular about this girl. Though out of the boy and her, your soulmate must be her, right? 

It could have been either of them, you saw them both at the same time! But your subconscious wouldn't make you a homosexual if you weren't one, so it has to be her!

...right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg john why u do dis
> 
> So John has finally found his soulmate and he's about to inevitably screw everything up! I can't wait!!
> 
> P.s. I'm trying to make these chapters longer but it's just not happening! No matter how much I write they always end up being the same length. I'll try to make the next one longer, but we'll just have to wait and see how it goes!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave is confused and john ruins everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter took a while! I tried to make it longer :)

John Egbert.

That's what he introduces himself as when your teacher announces that you have a new student. You feel like you should have known this already, but that's just about the dumbest thought you've ever had. Though despite the fact that you know you shouldn't give a single shit about this guy, that doesn't change what had happened when he'd walked in.

You don't even know how you _knew_ he was there, it was as if there was this pressure all around you, especially on your chest, suffocating you, as you tried your best to not completely lose your shit. 

You moved into your biology classroom for your first class of the day, and after you'd set your books down, he was there. You wish you could understand how you knew, but at that moment in time you realised that you didn't understand a goddamn thing. 

There was an uneven number of people in your biology class, so normally you'd be thrown in with whatever pair was unlucky enough to be closest to your teacher at the time. 

You know how ultimately useless you were when it came to the lab work, 'cause seriously, who's going to leave the blind kid to keep an eye on the Bunsen burner's open flame?

Well, there was that one time you were paired with this kid named Gamzee. You weren't sure if he'd been serious when he'd asked you to make sure the water temperature didn't go above what you wanted, while he went and got whatever chemical it was that you'd needed, but you found it pretty damn hilarious so you just went along with it.  
When the teacher finally came around to your bench to check on your progress, the twenty seconds of absolute silence when you'd told her you were 'keeping an eye on things' was one of the greatest moments you'd ever experienced. 

You'd also never been paired with Gamzee ever again.

Though this time was different. You could hear the teacher speaking to John in a low murmur. You can hear your name mixed in with their conversation, and it occurred to you that with the addition of John, your class numbers were now even.

When they were done talking, you feel- (you'd just like to reiterate that you have no idea _how the fuck_ you know where this guy is, but whenever he walks into a room you just _know_ where he is at any given moment and the only coherent thought you have is 'what the fuck') as he walks towards you, the closer he gets the warmer inside your chest becomes and you're beginning to wonder if you should be seeing a doctor about this before you have a heart attack in the middle of the biology labs.

You're so distracted by your concern for your own physical well being that you are almost startled by the sudden voice coming from inside your personal bubble. 

"Hi! Um, sorry if this is weird or anything, but the teacher told me to pair up with you for the lab so, yeah. I guess we'd better get started if we want to get it done on time!" 

"'Kay." You rub the hem of your shirt between your fingers, and hope that someone had the courtesy to fill this poor fucker in on how little help you're actually going to be.

"So which bench do you normally work at?" He asks, and his voice slightly changes in location, meaning he's probably looking all around the room for a bench that looks like no one is occupying it.

"I don't really have a set place, I'm like the goddamn nomad of the bio benches." 

He lets out a quiet laugh. "Oookay then, let's just go to this one." 

You immediately reach out and put your hand on his shoulder so he can guide your way and suddenly your palm is sweaty. You can feel your warm breath leaving your lungs and you wonder, did you clean your teeth this morning? You ate the leftover pizza for breakfast so your breath probably stinks. You didn't bother to wash your hair yesterday, can he tell? Is this even a clean shirt? You'd just picked up the first one you'd laid your hands on- 

"Dude, are you okay?" 

"I'm chill, yo. It's like the fucking Antarctic up in here."

You feel him shrug, before he begins moving over to a bench that you presume is empty, aside from the instruction sheet telling you what you need to do.

"So, Dave-" 

"Wow, first name basis already? You sure do work fast Egbert, I'll give you that." 

You run your hands along the cool marble of the bench and listen as he splutters, trying to repress a small smirk.

"Dave! That is totally not what is happening here, science is happening!" 

He shoves what you assume to be the instruction sheet into your hand and announces; "okay, so we need a Bunsen burner, some beakers, a thermometer..."

He lists them off and you can hear the clanking of glass, indicating that he's getting exactly what you need. 

Cool, he's already taking charge. Now you can just sit back and enjoy the good results. 

"Dave, what else do we need?" He brings you out of your plans of pulling up a chair and catching some Z's with the sound of him putting the equipment down on the bench and asking his stupid question.

"Uh..."

"Just read it off the paper!" 

Did no one honestly tell this guy that you were blind? Seriously?

"Seriously."

"Yes seriously! You're the one holding the paper, a little help would be nice!" 

"Dude." 

"What?" 

"Bro."

"Are you embarrassed to tell me you can't read or something?" 

"Man, I'm not illiterate. Try fucking blind."

The twenty seconds of silence while waiting for your teacher to react to your blind joke had been funny. This twenty seconds of silence was just awkward.

"...what?"

"Shocking I know. How can someone this cool be blind, you may ask? See the gods themselves were intimidated by my general awesome-as-fuck prowess. Prometheus was like yo Zeus get a load of this guy, and I've been blind ever since." You pretend to wipe a single tear from the lens of your shades.

He bursts out laughing as soon as you finish.

"Wow Dave, you really got me good! Haha, now I'm totally going to have to get you back for that!" 

"Why John, my tiny, shrivelled feelings have been fatally wounded by your words, you insensitive prick."

"Whoa, I'm just promising to give better than I got! Don't think you can handle it?" The grin you can hear in his words is enough to keep you from being too insulted.

"Bring it."

\-----------------

You're standing at your locker after class, getting your books out for your next one. Your previous conversation with John plays over in your head and all you can think about is his bright laugh and the fact that he doesn't actually believe you're blind. You stand there for a few minutes, lost in your thoughts, when a voice rings out right next to you.

"Hi Dave!" Her voice is high and brash and you have no idea who the fuck this is.

Someone bumps into your shoulder, pushing you back as they shove through the swarm of people, and the girl in front of you just lets out a bark of a laugh. 

"Sorry! I know you don't know who I am, I'm John's sister! You know John right?"

How could you forget.

"Yeah, well he told me all about you! So I'm just letting you know that we'll probably be joining you at lunch, if that's okay with you?" You can imagine that she's doing some puppy-dog-eyes shit and you let out a quiet sigh.

John is making his way over to you, and you are becoming increasingly frustrated with the fact that you _don't know how you fucking know this-_

"Jade! I told you, you can't just ask people things like that. I mean jeez, it's weird!" He comes to a stop right next to you, facing his sister.

"John, I said I was just going to ask!" 

"I know, but Jade!!!-” 

You decide to stop the shouty-pole siblings in their increasingly loud tracks.

"Yo, calm your tits. I'm sure we'll be able to find some space for Thing One and Thing Two."

"Oh wow, thanks Dave!" The girl, Jade, says brightly before clapping you harshly on the back, making your shades slip down your nose.

You try to act nonchalant as you push them back up to your eyes and completely succeed. You don't flounder at all, not one bit.

"Sorry about her." John says, and you presume that means the little firework has run off to explode in someone else's face. "She can be a bit full on at times!" 

"No kidding." 

"But yeah, I probably won't be there at lunch anyway, there's something I have to take care of!"

"Sounds like a party. You need help? Y'know, hiding the dead body after you're done 'taking care of' things?" 

He laughs again and you feel as if every time you make him do that, it's something significant.

"Thanks for the offer, but I think I can handle it! Anyway, see you later Dave!" He turns to leave and as soon as he's gone you want to go after him. You want to tell him to go with his sister at lunch, join your band of delinquents, stay with you. Whatever it is can wait, right? But as soon as those thoughts enter your head, you feel like the biggest creep and you quickly slam your locker, unravel your cane, and make your way to your next class, hoping to run into Terezi or Tavros to distract you from this messed-up train of thought.

\-----------------

Your name is John Egbert and you are on a mission! A mission to try and figure out who it was that made your world light up in colour this morning! 

You were supposed to ask the boy you were paired with in biology this morning, but when it actually came time to ask him, you'd backed out. You felt kind of stupid for thinking he'd react badly to you thinking he might be your soulmate, but for some stupid reason, some people still react badly to the idea of a boy having another boy for a soulmate. 

There was one person who you were trying to find in particular this time, but so far you couldn't find them anywhere!

You were about five seconds away from giving up, when you see a flash of long black hair about twenty metres in front of you.

That's her! She's at her locker and it looks like she's nearly done there, so you speed walk the rest of the way, trying to get to her before she leaves.

You're about five metres away when she notices you walking towards her. She raises her eyebrows slightly, and you briefly wonder what you must look like to her.

She turns bodily to face you when she realises that it is her you're heading towards, and you're not just some weirdly determined guy who likes to power walk everywhere.

As soon as you reach her, you freeze. On your way over you'd had an internal monologue running in your head and this conversation went perfectly, but now you feel like you're trapped in the spider's web and there's no way out.

You clear your throat, and she crosses her arms, covering the spiderweb patten printed across her shirt.

"What do you want?" She snaps, and you quickly take a small step back.

"Um, hi! I know this is going to sound weird, so weird! But it'll make sense when I explain it."

Her eyes narrow and you just want to backtrack to before this conversation happened, back to when you'd had the chance to accept Dave's offer. You kind of feel like you'd lost the perfect opportunity to prank him, to get him back for that stupid blind joke he'd played on you!

She clears her throat loudly, and yeah this probably isn't the time to start thinking about how you are going to own the hell out of Dave the next time you see him.

"So..." You begin, trying to form your thoughts into a coherent sentence. "So you'll never guess what happened when I walked into class this morning! I could see colour! It was amazing, it still is amazing, but right now I'm trying to figure out who it was that made it happen, so....yeah." You finish lamely, and she looks at you like you are the lamest thing she'd ever seen.

"So what? Why should I care?" She begins to eye you up and down distastefully. 

This is really not going how you planned. 

"Because you were one of the people I was looking at when it happened." 

Her eyes light up with interest, and a hint of something more sinister.

"One of? Well, who was the other person, hmmmmmmmm?" She leans in closer, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards, as if she already knows the answer.

"It was this guy called Dave-" she cuts you off as her smile widens almost manically, and she begins to proclaim loudly.

"So it was you! My world totally lit up this morning! I was just testing to see of you were serious, but now I'm sure that we're soulmates! So forget about that fakey-fake Dave. C'mon, uh..."

"John." You supply.

"Come on, John! I have some awesome people to introduce you to!" She hooks an arm around your neck, and you guess you should be feeling pretty great right about now. But something is _wrong_ , and the feeling of wrongness settles itself in your stomach and gnaws away at you until you feel like you're going to be sick.

The girl - whose name you learned was Vriska - continues to tote you around like some prized show dog and you wonder; is this what having a soulmate is supposed to be like? You'd heard it was one of the most amazing experiences you could ever have.

She said she was your soulmate though! Why would she say so if it wasn't true? You guess you have to believe her, especially since she's introducing you to her friends as her new soulmate.

You try to shake your head of the thought that something isn't right, and settle a friendly smile on your face as you're introduced to Vriska's friends.

Though all the while, you can't help but wonder what's happening with Jade and Dave right now, and more importantly, you can't shake the feeling that you'd rather be with them. 

\-----------------

You're sitting at the table in the cafeteria that you usually occupy. Rose is sitting to your left, softly talking to Kanaya about god-knows-what. Probably witchcraft, or knitting patterns.

You munch on the food from the tray in front of you, and as soon as you take a big bite of crappy pizza, there's a loud voice behind you.

"Hi Dave!" Jade plops herself down into the seat on your left, and Terezi pipes up from the seat across from you.

"Well Dave, who is this? Who are you keeping all to yourself, hmm?" 

"Guys, this is Jade. She's new and invited herself to sit with us." You address everyone at the table, and Jade speaks up again.

"Actually, I invited someone else to sit with us too! He should be here soon."

You briefly remind yourself that John had already told you he wasn't going to be here, and you don't have a chance to wonder who it might be before Jade is already shouting.

"Karkat! Over here!"

Oh, awesome. You knew exactly who Karkat was, mainly thanks to Terezi. He sometimes sits with you for her sake, but he hadn't shown his face for the past few days or so.

You were just thinking that all that was missing from your day was a shouty Spanish kid who is incidentally soulmates with one of your best friends but for some reason won't admit it.

Karkat had moved here from Spain about a year ago. He was actually pretty fluent in English, but whenever he went on one of his ranting tirades his speech would fluctuate between Spanish and English. Which even you have to admit was pretty entertaining.

You didn't actually hate the guy, but you were not prepared to deal with Karkat today, not after John had just been thrown into your life and just as quickly as he came, he disappeared again.

You have no idea where he is, but the further into lunch you get, the more a sick, twisting feeling settles itself into your gut and you don't know why but you feel like you need to get out of here.

You're frowning as you listen to the sound of Terezi sniffing Karkat as he sits down next to her. You also listen as Jade greets him and says 'how cool it is that he already knows the people she invited him to sit with!'

You're concentrating so much on listening to the people around you, trying to ignore the sick feeling in your stomach, that you almost startle when Rose elbows you in the ribs.

"Dave, is everything alright? You're fidgeting quite a lot, and look as if you're going to be sick."

The genuine concern in her voice is enough to make you swallow your pride, and ask her something you'd already told her multiple times you'd never do.

"Rose, can I talk to you for a sec?" 

You can tell she's surprised by the few moments it takes her to answer.

"Of course, Dave. You know that." 

You do, and you're infinitely grateful for her when she guides you by the elbow out of the cafeteria, down the locker filled hallway, and into an empty classroom.

She lets go of your elbow, and moves to shut the door behind you.

You slowly make your way over to one of the desks and forgo the chair, sitting yourself on the wooden surface of the desk. You wait patiently as Rose mimics your position across from you.

She says nothing, waiting for you to be the one to break the silence and you briefly wonder why you'd thought this was a good idea.

"Dave, please. I know your pride is probably taking quite the beating right now, but if something is on your mind, you can talk to me." 

You know that in a month or so, she's probably going to tease you about this relentlessly, but right now you just _need_ to get this off of your chest. Your chest has had things on it since the beginning of time, but this is something you've never had to deal with before, and truth be told, you don't know _how_.

"Dave-"

"Yeah yeah, Rose, I'm getting to it okay." You take in a deep breath before sorting out what exactly you're going to say.

"Okay, so you know the new kid right? John?"

"I've heard mention of him, yes."

"Well he's in my homeroom, and when he'd first walked in there was this, god Lalonde I swear if you ever mention any of this to anyone..."

"I shall swear to secrecy, if it really means that much to you." There's a blatant curiosity in her voice that makes you recoil from telling her anything, but you continue anyway.

"There was this _pressure_ on my chest and I thought I was having a goddamn heart attack, but then it was like suddenly I wasn't the only person I was aware of?" She makes a noise of recognition and you try to pretend like she isn't actually there.

"You know how you're aware of your own body at any given moment, like you're aware of your leg, but you don't actually acknowledge it but then someone kicks your leg and you're like _ow my fucking leg_. Yeah well it was like that."

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

You let out a long-suffering sigh. 

"You're killing me here, Rose."

"I'll try to refrain from doing so, long enough for you to finish your riveting tale about your leg being kicked."

"Shut up, Lalonde. So it was like, my awareness of him was always there, I just wasn't wasn't actually _aware_ of it myself. So he comes into the room and kicks me in the fucking awareness, which hurts by the way, and now I'm completely aware that I have this awareness."

"I'm officially confiscating the word awareness, and any other variation from your vocabulary."

"Are you honestly gonna make me explain it again? I'm starting to think you're just enjoying this way too much. Seeing me all vulnerable and emotional like one of your shotas in your fucked up fanfiction. Are you taking notes, Rose?" You accuse her, and you can just tell she is rolling her eyes.

"Dave, as interesting as I find it that you know what a shota is, and as much as I'd like to delve deeper into that topic, I believe you're purposefully deviating from the topic at hand."

"These hands are completely void of topics, seriously Rose, gaze upon these topicless hands."

"Dave."

"Check out these hands."

"Dave."

You pause, and drop the hands you were holding up in front of her face.

"Fine, but Rose if you don't understand what I'm saying this time, I'm not going to try and explain it again. Sorry but three strikes and you're out."

"I'll do my best."

"Okay so, he walked in and there was the pressure on my chest, yes? Then it was like, he's in front of me, he's walking towards me, oh, he just walked into class and who's the first to know? I fucking am. And how do I know this you might ask? I _don't fucking know_. I really don't get it. You know I'm totally one hundred percent chill so you know how I never lose my shit, but I swear Rose, my shit was gone, blown away in the wind, never to return."

She doesn't respond for what feels like ten minutes, but in reality it was probably only a few seconds, but even a few seconds is long enough for you to begin to worry.

"Dave, I do have a theory about this..." She begins, almost sounding cautious.

"Of course you do. Let me hear it then." 

"Well you remember when Karkat met Terezi, yes? Even though Karkat wouldn't admit that he could now see colour, Terezi began to claim she could now smell things such as 'cherry red' and 'lemon yellow'." She pauses and you nod, trying to understand where the hell she was going with this.

"Since Terezi wasn't able to use the conventional way of seeing colour, she compensated by using her strongest sense, which was smell. Which allowed her to identify the fact that she now had a soulmate without having to actually see anything."

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm merely suggesting that you may have reacted the same way. Your strongest sense, while not actually being considered an official 'sense' as such, is still the strongest way you are able to make up for the fact that you cannot see."

"So?"

"Dave please tell me you are purposefully being this dense." You shrug, and now she is the one getting impatient with you.

"Your strongest sense is spatial awareness. You always know who is around you, who is nearest to you, if anyone is too close. So naturally, you'd be even more aware of your soulmate in the same way. Probably even more so than anyone else."

"So, you're actually trying to tell me that you think John is my soulmate?" You press your palms to the wood of the table and lean forward, hoping your face is displaying your disbelief.

"It is only a theory, and I suggest you take it with a grain of salt."

You really want to just dismiss everything she's said, though you can't help but to think that it honestly makes sense.

The bell rings out above you, and Rose silently guides you out of the room. You hope her silence means that she won't bring up this conversation again, but you know that this is something that she won't leave alone, and you're hoping in vain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Just letting you know that I have exams for the next two weeks, so I'll definitely still be writing but it'll just be slower progress. Sorry!
> 
> (Also I'm not 100% happy with how this turned out, but I'll still post it anyway and leave it up to your judgement!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long! My exams threw me right out of my writing groove & then my motivation levels dropped to critical so sorry again!

It had been a week since John had moved into your classes, and things were going great. Well, they would be if that spiderbitch wasn't constantly stopping you from pulling your smooth moves.

You had one class with Vriska: P.e. Only one class that you were aware of anyway, it wasn't exactly like you could do a headcount if you'd wanted. 

You only had three classes with John, unfortunately. It was well known throughout the biology class that you and John were a permanent pair, and even you were better at art than John, according to Tavros. Granted, you did have more experience. 

On Wednesdays when Rose would normally take you home, instead she would loiter around the drama club 'helping' Kanaya, so you would have a one-on-one class with your art teacher. You liked sculpture because you could actually feel what you were creating, as opposed to painting, in which you had no idea what you were doing. 

You can still remember the first time you'd had these sessions with your teacher. She'd brought out a mannequin of a woman and told you to feel the shape of it from head to toe. You were hesitant at first, not really understanding what the fuck feeling up a naked mannequin had to do with art at all. But once you were done she'd plonked a piece if clay in front of you and told you to recreate what you had felt.

She'd tried not to laugh at you when you were done, but needless to say you'd moved down to something a lot simpler, deciding you'd have to work your way up to something that complex.

After the mannequin failure she'd made you feel up a pear for at least twenty minutes before she decided you were ready. You didn't think you'd have needed to do it for so long but she was right, as soon as you began to get your hands dirty with clay, you'd begun to forget little details about it.

She'd complained that you were ruining her snack with your clay-smeared fingers, but she was ultimately happy with the end result. 

You had no fucking idea what she was seeing, or if she was just trying to make you feel better when she said it resembled a fruit. Either way, you were proud of yourself for doing something that you'd normally never have even bothered attempting. 

You'd finish up whenever Rose decided she was done helping out Kanaya. Rose had gone from 'assisting' Kanaya to becoming a member of the club herself. Which was fine with you if it meant you no longer had to embarrass yourself in art class while you drew a blob of nothing and people snuck past and drew tiny dicks on your work.

Your other class was music. John was a natural at playing the piano, while you had artfully mastered the triangle.

You wish you could bring your turntables in and show off your sick beats, but unfortunately turntables don't fit in with the curriculum while apparently a fucking triangle does.

You would talk to John more outside of class, but whenever he'd try to sit down with you at your usual table Vriska was on him like a dog shit stinking up your wonderfully new shoes. 

She always managed to whisk him away to her shitty friends, leaving you to deal with everyone's problematic traits by yourself. 

Today was no exception, but before the smell of shit had invaded your senses John had managed to get out a short; “So, Dave...”

“Yes, John?”

“My dad was asking about any new friends I'd made this week, and obviously I couldn't invite any of the girls over-”

“Obviously.”

“And he's really proud of me for being able to make friends so quickly, and he appreciates you all taking me under your wing I guess, and long story short he's invited you over this weekend. I mean I am too! But I told him, 'wow dad that's probably a bit soon don't you think?' And he was all 'nonsense son!' Oh man, was I right? I hope this isn't too weird!” You could just imagine him flailing all over the place, so you decide to take pity on him.

“Nah man, it's cool, my wings are already housing about seven people but I'm sure there's room for one more. Rent is six-fifty a month though.”

He laughs, and the chair beneath him creaks as he leans more heavily onto the table next to you.

“Gee, thanks Dave!”

You accidentally stick your fingers into your tub of yogurt while internally freaking out because even though you have been over to Terezi and Tavros' houses a couple of times, the only person you've ever had an actual sleepover with was Rose when you were only a kid and Bro had to work late.

You can hear John laughing at you, along with everyone else at the table. 

“Wow Dave, what's gotten you all flustered?” Terezi questions you from across the table and you just know her grin is a mile fucking long, and you would flick your yogurt-covered fingers at her if there wasn't a chance for it to get on anyone else. So you opt for turning to John and wiping your raspberry yogurt all over his smug face.

You can feel his jaw move as he opens his mouth with an indignant shout, and his hands come into contact with your shoulder as he shoves you closer to the person to your left. 

This person turns out to be Kanaya, as you hear her voice distastefully by your ear. 

“Food fights, David? Although I don't understand your testosterone fuelled need to to project food at others, it would be much appreciated if I were to be kept out of it. I made this skirt only recently.” 

You hear the rustle of fabric and assume she must be adjusting said skirt.

“No need to get your panties in a twist Kan, anyone who can put up with Rose for more than five seconds has definitely earned my respect enough to warrant them a free pass out of the epic food battle.”

Rose doesn't seem to notice your insult, as her voice drifts across the table to your ears, along with Jade's. You assume they're deep in conversation, well, you hope they are.

“Is that why you hold yourself in such high esteem?” Kanaya says with the hint of a smirk in her voice, but before you can engage her in a little snark-fest, a grating voice hits your eardrums from closest to John. 

“Joooooooohn! How many times do we have to go over this? Come on!” 

The table creaks as Vriska presses her hands down on the edge, and her voice becomes louder the close she leans towards everyone. 

“Sorry to cut this party short. Well, actually no, I'm not. Let's go John!”

The screeching sound the chair makes against the linoleum floor as John stands is only second to Vriska's voice in terms of how much it makes you wish you were deaf instead of blind. 

John tells Vriska to take her nasally voice and her stupidly extended syllables and get lost.

Well, you wish he would. Instead he politely, with no hint of understanding as to how rude she's being, tells her to hold on a second. 

“So Dave, you never answered my question!” He hovers there silently for a moment, and you know that as soon as you give your answer he's going to run off with that nasty bitch and you just can't seem to quell the jealousy that flares up in you. Your nails press into your palms as your fists clench and as much as you shouldn't want to monopolise his time, you _do_ want that.  
The more time wears on the more you find that feeling within yourself becoming more and more intense. You have no idea where it's leading but you're definitely worried about the outcome.

“Dave?” 

You unclench your fists and grip onto the metal bars of your chair legs instead. 

“Sure, I'll-” 

“John, hurry up!!!!!!!!”

You listen as John lets out a ridiculous yelp of surprise as Vriska roughly pulls him away.

You feel his presence move further and further away from you until it's completely gone, and you let out a harsh sigh.

“Hmm.” Kanaya hums from your left.

“Don't you 'hmm' at me, keep your 'hmms' to yourself.” You snap before grabbing whatever food your hand comes into contact with and shoving it into your mouth. It turns out to be a handful of pasta.

Kanaya is snickering softly next to you, but you don't break the illusion that you know exactly what you are doing even though it's pretty obvious that you're regretting every single life choice you've ever made right about now.

After you've finished shovelling down pasta, Kanaya hands you a napkin which you bitterly thank her for.

\----------------

You've finished with all of your classes for the day and you decide to try and find John so that you can get more details out of him about this thing that you will never stoop so low as to call a sleepover.

Just two bros hanging out. A sleepbrover.

Fuck, that was worse than you thought it'd be. Thank god no one is around to listen to your incessant ramblings.

You weren't able to find anyone after your last class of the day, so you had your cane tapping away noisily in front of you.

After going here for five years, you had the schools layout pretty much down by now, so you slowly made your way towards the front of the school, listening out for any voices you're familiar with.

It wasn't long before you felt a pressure in your head, just behind your eyes, before you can feel John's presence just around the corner. You can hear his voice rising and falling in pitch.

“But I already have something planned!”

You have no problem about interrupting his conversation, until you hear the voice that responds. 

“Honestly John? Are you reeeeeeeeally going to make me go by myself?” 

You halt in your tracks and decide that maybe asking John for the details can wait until tomorrow.

Rose meets you at the front of the school after you walk out the double doors and down the steps. She hooks her arm through yours and guides you towards the car that Roxy lets her borrow. 

You walk with a confidence that wouldn't allow people to even know you were blind if it weren't for the goddamn cane in your hand.

 

“So Dave, any plans for the coming weekend?” You're about halfway to your apartment when she breaks the silence, and you hear the slight amusement in her voice. 

“I thought you were talking to Jade.”

You try not to sound defensive, but Rose is the type to notice every little detail about things like that which is why you try to keep your body language as neutral as possible. 

“When you begin shoving handfuls of pasta into you mouth it can be expected that I, and a few others, are going to notice.”

“Oh good, your embarrassing story supply last Christmas was shamefully low. Can't wait to listen to what you've come up with this year, what with all your eavesdropping.”

“I have observed quite a few things during the previous months.” 

“Do tell.” You aim a look in her direction and waggle your eyebrows at her, but you're not sure if she noticed, as she was turning a corner while you did it and you hope for both of your sakes that she kept her eyes on the road and didn't become too entranced by your risqué eyebrows. 

“Regretfully I am unable to share, as I know how much you love surprises.” 

You make no outward displays of disappointment other than slouching slightly lower in your seat.

“You have an unfair advantage though.” You totally just played the blind card and you're not even sorry, she could have some serious dirt on you that you yourself don't even know about. 

“Please, Dave, you're going to attempt to garner pity? I'm willing to give it about as much as you wish to receive it. Which is never for me, and not at all for you.”

She's right, of course. Obviously you're not as easily able to get dirt on anyone by yourself, but you should've known that Rose wouldn't give you a heads up about any upcoming embarrassment. You would've done the same thing.

\-----------------

It takes you six hours after school before your mind wanders back to the idea of you _staying at John's house_ and being _under John's roof_ while being _with John._

You can't really explain what it is you're feeling. It's not completely excitement, but then again it's not entirely nervousness. It's more...anticipation. 

You also didn't entirely understand why your mind was running through a list of things that you'd have to do before you go.

\- shower  
\- wear a clean shirt  
\- make sure Bro is as uninformed as possible

You're completely aware of the absurdity of the last point, and that Bro will make it his top priority to be completely in-the-know because he knows it will annoy you.

If he can't get any information out of you, (which he won't, because you don't even know entirely what's going on yourself) you know he'll find out elsewhere. 

Probably from Roxy, who would've found out from Kanaya's mother, who would've found out from Kanaya because Rose blabbed about what she was told from you. 

The same sort of procedure went down when Rose and Kanaya turned the blessed age of sixteen and found out that they were soulmates. The only difference was that it was Rose trying to keep things on the DL and you were the one who went blabbing to Roxy like you were a pair of gossipy old ladies. 

Now that you're on the receiving end of the same treatment, yeah, you can safely say that you'd want revenge on your past self too, if you were Rose. 

You sigh internally as you reach over to the clock on your bedside table. The cards flip as you go to touch them. You quickly pull your hand back and go for a second attempt. 

9:45pm.

Not late enough to go to sleep, but not early enough to really do anything else except mundane things such as watch TV or read or play video games or use your eyes but obviously that's not going to happen. 

You roll onto your back on your bed and run over your options in your head.

.....you could always jerk off.....but right now you've got John on the brain and that's all kinds of hell no. 

Not that you'd be completely opposed, but you're going to have to look into his eyes tomorrow and think, 'hey John, it's just me, Dave. I definitely did not spank it to the thought of you the other night. Why would I soil our friendship garden like that?” Poor, naive John. 

Well you won't really have to see John, you'll feel John. All up in your space, yeah.

Your brain is being a complete sleaze and ok holy shit.

Bro just slammed open your door and you're on your feet in a second. You're also immensely relieved that you didn't give into the temptation.

“We're going over to Rox's on Saturday.” 

He's gone in the next second, barely long enough for you to get out a quick; “No can do, Bro!”

He's back even quicker than when he left and you know know that this would give anyone else whiplash, but you just roll your eyes at the dramatics and wait for him to react.

You can feel the whole 'perfectly-raised-eyebrow' 'arms-crossed' 'awkward-paternal/broternal-authoritarian' aura he's giving off and you like to think you're pretty immune to that pressure by now but truth be told, you cave pretty much every time in one way or another.

You let the silence persist for thirty more seconds before it becomes apparent that he's waiting for you, and you break it.

“Ok well there's this new kid-” 

“Mm- _hmmm_.” He interjects loudly so you have no choice but to pause the conversation you want over as quickly as possible. 

“Uh- _huh_ , so his dad is really proud of him for making friends or some shit and so I've been cordially invited to eat their food and sleep on their floor.”

The silence continues for a few seconds before Bro finally responds.

“Him?” You can hear the underlying tone and choose to ignore it.

“'S what I said.”

“Name?” 

“John.” 

“Full name.”

“John Smith, we done here?” 

“Pfft, kid, unless you want me 'cordially' introducing myself to your new bf _and_ his daddy I suggest you give me a name.”

His tone is nonchalant enough, but you can hear the underlying threat of complete humiliation and the promise of John never wanting to invite you over again. Honestly, Bro has no shame whatsoever.

“John Egbert.” You mutter, but you know he heard because he's gone relatively quickly after that, probably to internet stalk him.

You mentally pray for John and his family, after cursing Rose to the depths of hell. 

You know she probably told Roxy all about your situation, the same way that you did. Obviously once Roxy knew, the first thing she'd do was invite you over so she could wean the details out of you whether you were willing or not. Bro would then have to tell you that you were going on Saturday and you'd be forced to tell Bro about John.

You know how Rose's mind works, only because yours works in the same way a lot of the time.

You decide you're done with this day, this day is officially over for you.

All you want to do is shower and go right the fuck to sleep. You plan on getting the details from John tomorrow anyway.

\-----------------

You walk into the halls Friday morning with one priority on your mind: finding John.

You don't expect someone to ram straight into you, and you try to keep yourself as expressionless as possible, unsure what to expect. 

“Excuse - oh! Dave, it's nice to see you!”

“Nice to see you too Jade. Well, y'know, the sentiment is there.”

Not the sibling you were looking for, but she's here now so you might as well be polite or something.

“You're still coming on Saturday, right?”

Oh yeah, you kind of forgot that she was going to be there too, you'd been so focused on John and Dadbert.

You're honestly relieved just a little bit that she'll be there. It'll be good to have someone to take the edge off while you work some serious courting skills.

Oh look, John is making his way over to you.

“Dave! There you are, oh, hey Jade!”

“Hey John! Dave and I were just talking about Saturday.”

“Heh, really?” He sounds almost guilty, and you're instantly curious.

“Yup, I was just telling Jade to break out her curlers and nail polish because I'm demanding only the finest of makeovers.”

Jade snorts. “Don't worry Dave! I have this lovely light grey shade that'll go perfectly with your hair!”

“Got any requests, Egbert?”

“Actually, um....about Saturday....” You hear him take a deep breath.

“John.” Jade has a warning tone in her voice that let's you know that you both can see what's coming. 

“It's just that Vriska invited me to this party and I have to go with her!”

“John! You don't just make other plans when you already have some!”

“I know, but I couldn't just say no to her! But Dave, you can come if you want to, and you can stay over next weekend!”

“Uh,” you want to say yes, you really fucking want to, but you also don't want to give off the impression that you'll do whatever he wants but-

“Ok, cool.”

“ _not_ cool John.” You don't know why she's getting so defensive of you, but you're glad she's getting annoyed so you don't have to. Maybe she really thought she was going to get to do your nails. 

“Yeah yeah I know, I suck, bluh bluh.” Jade huffs and you can hear her footsteps as she stomps away. 

“So you'll really come?” He asks, paying no mind to Jade and her oddly emotional exit.

“Yeah, why not.”

“Awesome!” Suddenly there are arms wrapped around your neck practically asphyxiating you, a warm chest is pressed against yours and your hands barely find his waist before he's pulling away from you.

“I thought you'd be really annoyed with me.”

“Yeah, kinda, but I'm sure I'll be able to make it through another week without being able to sniff your pillows.”

You wish you could say you were completely joking.

One of his hands is still on your shoulder and you were already vaguely aware that he was a bit shorter than you, but now you're pretty certain that his nose comes up to just above your chin.

So you could just sorta, boop him on the nose, with your lips, if you'd wanted to but you're relatively sure he'd react badly to that. Also you weren't raised in a fucking barn, you were raised by Bro, so you knew that cutesy shit like that was all kinds of lame.

It hits you in that moment that you have plans with John for the next two weeks and you smirk to yourself. 

You have plans with John for the next two weeks and where is Vriska?

No-fucking-where.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things don't really go to plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I'm so so so sorry that this chapter took so long, year 12 really snuck up on me and I've been sooo busy and so stressed. I have been writing through it all though! And I hope that this chapter makes up for my absence.
> 
> Also, if you spot any typos that I've missed, please point them out to me! I can't stand typos and I'm trying my best to get rid of them before I post :]

It was the night of the party, and John was so kind as to inform you that it was, in fact, a beach party. He said there'd be a bonfire and everything. You didn't exactly know what this 'everything' was, you hardly even knew what a bonfire was. All you knew was that fire equalled hot and why someone would willingly bring a large heaping pile of heat into one place, especially in Texas, you didn't really understand. 

When you'd asked John this, he'd blurted out a quick, "It looks really cool!", before going weirdly silent. You didn't know why. He'd told you that when he'd first met you that he didn't believe you were actually blind, so there was no real reason why he should be getting weird about it now. 

He had a major case of foot-in-mouth syndrome, but you were slowly growing used to it.  
It wasn't that he was insensitive as such, he just didn't seem to realise that something he said could be taken as offensive until he'd already gone and opened his big mouth. 

When you'd asked John how exactly he thought you'd get there, he'd offered to pick you up from your apartment, which needless to say you were pretty hesitant about. 

You knew that if John came to pick you up straight from the apartment with Bro around, you wouldn't get to the party for at least another half hour.

Which is why you've now found yourself walking down the street at 9pm to your 'house' where John will pick you up. 

You think an old lady lives there. She might've died though, because the yappy little dog that used to go crazy every time you'd walk past hasn't made a single yap lately. She used to say hi to you, she hasn't in a long while. 

You're pulled out of your thoughts by a quick succession of noise. 

A horn beeping. A car coming to a stop. A window being rolled down, and your name being called out a second later. 

You'd been so lost in your thoughts that you'd lost track of where you were. Did you reach the house yet? Or did John see you walk past it? You know you should've been paying more attention, but you really should ask Bro what happened to the old lady and her annoying dog. 

The only reason you'd talked to Bro at all today was to ask him if you were wearing your black jeans. He'd reminded you that all your jeans are black and you'd replied: "oh....yeah." before walking out. 

You know that he knows something's up, but this is going to be one of the rare occasions where he is going to have to cave first, because fuck that. You'll tell him the juicy details about John when he decides to tell you what the hell is up with his own messed up love life. Not that you really want to get all deep and meaningful with your Bro, but if you're going to have to go through the pain of uncomfortable honesty, then so is he.

Your name is called out again, and you quickly move in the direction of John's voice. 

The rough drag of gravel on the end of your cane changes to the swish of grass as you move onto the nature strip, and it quickly comes into contact with the side of John's car. 

“C'mon Dave, we're going to be late!” You're mildly surprised when his hand grabs your arm and pulls you even closer to the car. 

“Alright, alright, but remember Egbert; a Queen is never late, everyone else is simply early.” 

“We don't have time for Princess Diaries quotes!” You roll your eyes, even with the knowledge that he can't see them, and press your fingers to the smooth metal door. You quickly drag them along the exterior and across the hood of the car until you've made your way around and are hopping into the passenger seat. 

“So, you ready to go?” John asks over the crappy music pouring out of the radio speakers.

“Hold up, let me just make sure that I didn't forget my purse.” He laughs, but you can hardly hear it over the rattling engine of the rust bucket he's driving. 

The drive doesn't take too long with John singing along to the shitty music, and going on about who might be there and how much fun it's going to be. 

He pulls to a stop a while later in a gravelly car park, and turns to you. 

“Do you think there will be alcohol?” His excitement is palpable. 

“Not for you. Designated Driver, remember? And it's not as if I can drive us if you decide to have a few anyway.” He mimics you as you hop out of the car. The slam of the doors echoes in the night, and you can hear the thump of music not too far away. 

The night is warm, and there's only a slight breeze. You don't think a fire will be necessary, but if it looks as good as John says then it must be worth it. 

You move around to his side of the car, the breeze slightly tousling your hair, and tugging at your shirt. 

When you move your hand up to wrap around his bicep, you find that he's only wearing a short sleeved shirt and you feel blessed. 

He doesn't move, so neither do you. You find yourself rubbing your thumb slowly up and down, only lightly. His skin is smooth and warm and you love it, you want more of his warmth.

The silence grows thicker between you, and the gravel crunches slightly as you take a small step towards him.

You can hear his breathing now, it's slightly faster, a little bit heavier and you know that you have his full attention.

You trail your fingers up to his shoulder, catching his short sleeve and tugging at it before it falls back down. 

Your hand reaches his neck and his warmth radiates and wraps around it, his pulse hammering away under your fingertips. 

You wonder what his expression looks like, you wish you could use it as some sort of indicator as to whether you're doing the right thing. You take into account the fact that he hasn't moved at all. If he doesn't respond soon you'll back off immediately, but before you have a chance to do so, his hand wraps lightly around your wrist. 

Instead of pulling your hand away like you'd expected, he instead runs his hand up your arm, similar to the way you did. You immediately berate yourself for wearing a long sleeved shirt but before you can focus too much on that, his fingers begin to trail up your jawline and tangle into the hair above the nape of your neck. 

You move towards him and feel his breath roll over your lips. Your breath quickens and you feel a heat begin to build up in your chest. You only have a real perception of how close your lips are when your nose bumps into his. 

You're nervous, you're _excited_. 

“John.” You whisper. It comes out more like a question, and he exhales a soft sigh. It's shaky, so you can assume that he's probably as nervous as you are. 

“John!” You're snapped out of your trance as a familiar voice calls from far away.

He's gone in the next second and it feels like a punch to the gut. You take in a sharp breath before straightening up completely. 

Aside from wanting to be able to touch him, you also have him under the pretence that you need him to physically guide you. As far as he knows, you have no idea where to go from here without him there to guide you. It is true that all you know is that the car is behind you, but you could easily just follow his presence when he begins to walk down to the beach in order for you to know where you're going.

John is about a metre away from you now, and he doesn't seem to be making any move to come back to you. It only takes a few seconds for you to understand why.

“John! _there_ you are, I thought you'd gotten yourself lost or something!!!!!!!!” Her voice grows louder the closer she gets and as annoyed as you are about being interrupted, you mainly just want to know; what the fuck is she doing here? She obviously likes John, but what, is she stalking him now? You also can't help but wonder, did she see anything? 

You know that she's been weirdly clingy to John, maybe she'd back off about it if she saw that she was clearly interrupting something. Then you remember that it's Vriska you're talking about, and there's no way that she'd do that for anybody. 

“Hey Vriska!” He had his usual cheeriness to his voice, but there was a slight undertone you detected that let you know that this had affected him. It wasn't going to be something that he could just simply brush off, and you were selfishly happy for that.

“Well come on! The party's already started!” She immediately begins to pull John along, and you follow the direction of John's presence. 

“Well hello to you too.” You call out sarcastically as you trail along behind them.

“Oh please, Dave. You should be _thanking_ me instead of expecting me to talk to you!” 

“Uh huh, and why is that?” You weren't dragged out here to be yakked at by the girl making moves all up on your man. 

Surprisingly enough, she drops back to walk with you, John stumbling along the gravely path that is slowly turning to sand, alongside her.

“Becaaaaaaaause.” Her arm weighs heavily as she drapes it across your shoulders, and you're sure she can feel how tense you are. “I was the one who invited you.” There's a harsh edge to her voice that immediately has you on high alert. 

“Sorry to break it to you, but no you weren't. John did.” You manage to nudge her arm off of your shoulder and she huffs before John chimes in. 

“Actually Dave, I was totally going to invite you anyway! It was just that, well, Vriska was the one who insisted.” You kind of wish he'd mentioned that earlier. 

“Seeeeeeee? I'm the reason that you're even here right now, Dave.” 

You know that the only reason she'd 'insist' that you come is because she has something planned. Vriska doesn't do things out of the kindness of her heart, especially for people she doesn't like. Namely; you. 

Your feet start to sink further down into the sand the closer to the main part of the beach you get. The noise also gets progressively louder, and you find yourself just a bit overwhelmed by how much your senses are having to take in right now.

There's a shitty pop beat playing loudly out of some speakers, there's also the sound of quite a few people drinking and laughing, not to mention the sound of the ocean waves breaking and the fire crackling. 

It's a lot to take in but you adjust well. It also helps that John walks up to you and places a hand on your shoulder. 

“Hey, sorry for not telling you that Vriska wanted you to come too.” 

“Nah man, it's cool, I would've come anyway.” You totally would not have come anyway. You don't like beaches on a good day, but with Vriska having something up her sleeve, you're just waiting to walk unsuspectingly into a bear trap.

You'd like to think that having John there might change things, but you sincerely doubt it. 

“Somehow Dave, I just don't believe that!” 

You make an awkward huff, but say no more. You have no idea where to go from here. Do you bring up what happened? Let it be forgotten? You don't think you'd be able to do that, but you figure that now isn't the best time to bring up your almost-homo moment. 

Okay so it was a little bit more that 'almost' and could even have been full-homo if Vriska hadn't been there to interrupt. Although, if she hadn't invited you, you probably wouldn't have had any sort of moment with John at all. 

You try not to be bitter about that fact and fail, but before you can begin to dwell, John changes your train of thought entirely. 

“So, I know that I'm the designated driver and all, but that doesn't mean that you can't drink! Seriously, you don't look like you're in he best mood right now, maybe you just need to loosen up a little!”

He pats your shoulder and leaves you standing for a few seconds a few metres away from the crackling flames, only to come back a second later and push a cold drink into your hand.

“Here! Don't worry too much about it, I'll make sure you get home.” 

It occurs to you that with Vriska's scheming and your total lack of understanding as to where you are and what kinds of people are here, that this is probably a bad idea. Then you think 'fuck it' and take a swig of whatever shitty alcoholic drink John has grabbed for you. 

You can tell that he's grinning from hear to ear when he triumphantly pats you hard on the back, pushing you harshly forward and making your drink catch in your throat. 

“Sorry!” You hear him get out around his laughter from somewhere beside you, but you're too busy focusing on not dying to give him a proper response.

Once the bitter aftertaste is all that is left of the drink in your mouth, you find John snickering at you. 

“Whoa, hold up,” you rasp, “you force me to drink this, you then almost seriously injure me, and now you're laughing about it? That was peer pressure, John, I thought you were better than that. I can't believe I was so wrong about you. I let you into my heart, I almost let you into my bed-” 

“Wow Dave! I never pictured you as a chatty drunk!” 

“I've only had one sip.” 

“Well then I guess I'll just have to test this theory!” He guides the drink back to your lips, and you reluctantly take another mouthful. 

“This tastes like ass.” 

“Well how would you know, Dave?”

You waggle your eyebrows at him above your shades, and he snorts and shoves your shoulder.

“Gross, Dave!”

“What can I say, I'm a man of many talents.” 

You drink until you finish that bottle, then another, and another, one more finds it's way into your hands and you drink that too. Your brain feels funny and it feels like John is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Sometimes he's near you, and sometimes he's gone.

You've been wandering around for a few minutes, you think, maybe longer. You're not sure how long you've been here, but once you'd finished talking to John, you'd wandered over to the warmth of the fire and sat down. 

You could hear the sloppy sound of two people making out near you, so you began to talk to them. 

“Wow, that's some surround sound mackin'. Y'know, I've had some of those myself, make outs. But... I've never heard one as loud as this. Hmm... D'you mind if I record it? I might be able to find a way to mix it into something.” You knew your words we're slurring, but you couldn't feel your lips properly and everything was coming out slower than you'd intended it to. 

They left soon after that and took their sounds with them, which you were happy about. Though when you'd heard them making out your mind wandered off to thinking about John, so you'd decided that you wanted to find him.

You'd pulled off your shoes and socks a while ago so you could feel the sand between your toes because it felt soft, and you never get to go to the beach.

You'd gone once when you were a kid, but while you were swimming a huge wave came over you and water had compressed you at all sides. You couldn't see, which you were used to, but you also couldn't hear anything but the ringing in your ears, or feel anything but the pressure of the water all around you. Everything was dark and you couldn't breathe. It was the first time you ever thought that you were actually going to die, which scared the absolute fuck out of you.  
Once Bro had pulled you out, you'd clung to him and cried your eyes out and he never said anything about it, but he never took you back to the beach either, which you were grateful for.

Once you'd snapped out of your memories you realised that you didn't know where you were headed, but when the sand changed from dry and soft to damp and compact, you figured that you were headed towards water. 

Maybe John decided he wanted to go swimming? You contemplate joining him before the amount of ice fucking cold water washes over your feet and you quickly take a few steps back. There is no way that John would have gone swimming, and if he did there is absolutely no chance that you would join him. 

Once you've had that shock to your senses, you begin to notice other things, like when did the music get so loud? It's vibrating through you and it wasn't this loud even when you were right next to the speakers. They're going to get the police on all of your asses at this rate. 

It begins to dawn on you that there is a more important sense that you should probably be focusing on. 

There's a presence, multiple actually, right behind you, maybe a metre away. 

Once you've realised that none of them are John you also realise that you need to get the fuck out of here. No one here is a friend to you except John, so this can't be good.

They're moving slowly closer and you try to flash step away, but you're intoxicated and your movements are slow so they're able to grab onto you a lot easier than they should be, and you're pissed at yourself for allowing this to happen. 

They grip onto your arms and try to pull you closer towards the water and holy fuck no. No no no, that's not happening. 

You struggle harder and despite your pride, you plead. You fucking plead while slurring and you're going to hate yourself once this is over, but right now you're trying to wrench your arms out of their grip only to have them grip on tighter. 

Their bodies press against yours as they try to use more physical force to get you towards the water. 

“Fuck, fuck, stop it! Let go of me! I swear to fucking god-” 

They begin to laugh and you can smell the alcohol on their breath. You kick out your legs to try and get one of them in the nuts but they only continue to laugh at your inebriated movements. You drop your weight but they only drag you further. They're talking to you but you're frantic and your voice is becoming increasingly louder as you pull away from the water and they pull you towards it, but the music is louder and you're certain that no one can hear you.

They can't seem to get you towards the water with all of your flailing, so one of the guys further back begins to try and grab your legs. You kick out again, but once he has a grip on you, you know it's over.

In the next second their crushing grips are gone and you're flying through the air, within the same second, you'd swear you were freezing to death. 

All of your muscles tense so tightly you'd probably be getting cramps if you weren't curling in on yourself as the ice cold water encompassed you.

Your eyes snap wide open, as does your mouth as the air is forcibly pushed out of your lungs, while the sharp-as-knives water cuts into your skin. 

After the initial frozen shock, your next reflex is to take a deep breath in, only for you to get a mouthful of salty water. You splutter and uncurl yourself, only to have your back hit the hard sand beneath the water.

You've been unfortunate enough to realise that this is the kind of beach where the water gets deep quickly, unlike some where you can walk out into the waves for ages only to have the water come to somewhere around your knees.

You wish that it was that type of beach as the water weighs heavily down upon you, and you have to fight to make your way to the surface with every aching muscle in your body. 

When you breach the surface you can hear yelling. You don't know if it sounds angry of frantic but within the next second you can hear splashing and can feel a pair of hands under your armpits hauling you up. Your head feels like you drank twelve slurpees in twelve seconds and you have the worst brain freeze you've ever experienced. Your head is throbbing and painfully numb, you're disoriented and shivering like mad, and your teeth are chattering so hard they might break. 

“Dave, Dave I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner.” The voice reaches your ears dimly, and despite the fact that you're dying of hypothermia, you can feel John's familiar warmth.

“J-J-Jh-” he's radiating warmth and right now you really fucking need some of that but you can't even say his name. You don't want to make him cold, but you find yourself supporting your body on his anyway. 

“Yeah, it's me. Dave, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to come, this was a bad idea.” He's trying to move you away from the water, but you're struggling to move your limbs at all. You recognise that he's shivering too, but no matter how much you try, you're pretty much locked into place. 

“H-how did you f-find-.” Your teeth chattering interrupts your question, and it comes out as a jumbled mess of sounds, but he seems to understand you anyway.

He speaks too fast for you to keep up with, which is definitely something that you're not used to, nor do you enjoy it. What you manage to get from his sentence was; “keeping an eye on you” “Something about Vriska being needy” “you being gone once he got back.” 

All you're able to get from that sentence was that Vriska was involved and that piece of information dangles over you, almost as if it's taunting you. Telling you that you knew something was going to happen and you _still_ couldn't avoid it.

“Can you walk?” He asks you. You nod once. 

“Then we should go.” He begins to try and wring out your shirt while you stand there shivering. You nod your head again jerkily, and you wish that you could just teleport over to the car instead of having to walk past those strangers who did this to you. Your hair sticks to your forehead and the cold breeze is even sharper against your skin, like the razor sharp teeth of a rabid dog going to town on your poor, delicate flesh. 

It is only then that you begin to notice the absence of a familiar weight on your nose.

“My shades.” You barely manage to get out.

“We should get you back to the car first. I'll come back and look for them.” You nod again, wanting to bring a hand up to cover your eyes, just in case the night isn't dark enough to hide the details. 

“C-an we n-not, go near the f-fire?” You ask keeping your head fixed firmly downwards.

There's a noticeable pause before John answers.

“...sure, Dave.”

You both walk around the fire, him rubbing your back, and you attempting to block out whatever voices manage to reach your ears. 

The sand turns to rocks underneath your bare feet as you get closer to John's car, and you try to walk lightly over them, but your joints are stiff and the sharp rocks dig harshly into the soles of your feet. 

John moves ahead and quickly unlocks the car before guiding you to sit in the passenger seat, facing out into the night. You close your eyes and try to hide them from John's view. 

“I'll go look for your shades. Just sit here, and don't move! Okay?” 

“Woof.” 

He leaves shortly after that, and you're just glad that you didn't ask Bro to wait up for you. You brought your own keys so that he could actually get some goddamn sleep for once. He's annoying most days, but when he's sleep deprived... That's not something that you ever want to go through again. You shudder at the memory of forced movie-marathons and sibling bonding time.  
He commentated all of them as to not bore you, and while you'll admit that it was funny at first, you'd like to reiterate that he commentated All. Of. Them.

To distract yourself from the trauma of those memories, you feel around in your soaked pockets for the keys you had made once Bro found humour in the punishment of locking you out. 

You're also glad to have your own key because, well, you really don't want Bro to see you like this. You know that he knows that you don't appreciate pity, and you're relatively sure that he doesn't pity you, but there are a few instances where that knowledge tends to slip. It has always annoyed you, and you know that if he sees you, that this will be one of those instances.

You sift through your jean's pockets for a few more minutes before the realisation hits you; you've lost your keys.

They're not anywhere in your pockets, and you harshly lay your head back on the headrest of your seat, your eye still closed, whispering profanity to yourself.

Something then slips onto your face, and your eyes snap open before you can think better of it. Within the next second, your hand snaps up to grab the wrist of the offender. 

“Whoa!” 

You immediately let go once you realise that it's only John, and you feel the familiar weight of your shades back on your face. 

“Oh, thanks.” 

“It's fine,” he responds, recovering quickly, “I found them by the water. Also...”

Something hard drops into your lap.

“...I found your shoes.”

“Uh, John?” You ask, feeling slightly guilty for all that you're having him do for you. 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you ring someone for me?” 

You hear him rustle around in his pocket, before he moves to sit in the drivers seat next to you. You begin to recite the familiar number in order for him to type it into the keypad. 

“It's ringing.” He whispers as he holds the phone up to your ear.

You take it from him, as a familiar voice on the other end says: “Hello?”

“Hey Rose, kinda need a favour.” 

“Oh? Is this the esteemed Strider requiring _my_ assistance? How interesting.”

“Mhm, fascinating, ok so I'm going to need to borrow your keys.” 

“Oh no, wait just a moment.”

“Wait, what?” 

It didn't take long for your question to be answered, when the drunk voice of Roxy could be heard in the background.

“Is... Is that little Davey?”

You can hear Rose silently curse you for ringing her at all. 

“Yes, mother. Stop attempting to take the phone.”

“But he never calls me! Why does he never call me?” 

“Perhaps it is due to the fact that you are unable to partake in coherent conversations the majority of the time.” 

“Oh Rose, so feisty. Just gimme the phone.”

You hear the sound of Roxy trying to snatch the phone, and it is a few minutes before you hear Rose's voice on the other end.

“Dave, are you still there?” 

“How did you get her to stop?” 

“I have resorted to locking myself in the bathroom. What is it you required?” 

You hope that she doesn't find too much enjoyment out of making you suffer, and hope that she is feeling charitable tonight.

“I kinda lost my keys at this little party, and I'm sure you can guess why I wouldn't want to wake Bro up.” 

There is a pause before she replies, and you can only hope that she can hear how tired you are. 

“Yes, I can understand how that would be regretful.” 

You know that John is listening patiently to your conversation, and you're continuously thankful that he's putting up with all of your bullshit.

Rose interrupts you as you begin to think of all the ways that you could make it up to John. 

“Whilst I understand that you contacted me as to not alert Bro to your comings and goings in your household, you must be aware of the ramifications of requesting my assistance.” 

“Which are?” 

There's a pause in which you can hear he unlock the bathroom door, and you can assume that she was walking out into the hall. 

“I believe the reason for my mother's silence is that she has been listening in on our conversation through the other phone.” 

“Oh.” You can feel the slight frown fall onto your face as she continues to speak.

“I can assume that she is off to ring Bro as we speak.”

“Shit.” 

“Indeed.” 

You shift in your seat, and feel the material of it chafe against your hand as you rub your palm against it. 

John whispers to you from the drivers seat. 

“Is everything alright?”

You move the phone speaker away from your mouth in order to answer.

“Everything's good, I'll explain on the drive home.” 

“Is that John?” Rose's voice resounds loudly through the speakers. 

“Hi Rose!” John calls back cheerily.

“Might as well put this soap opera on loud speaker.” You say, handing John the phone. 

“Did you mention something about putting me on loudspeaker?” Rose asks, her voice projecting out of the phone. 

“Yep!” John answers for you. 

“Oh, hello John.” She sounds genuinely pleasant when she answers him, instead of the falsely pleasant that you've heard so many times before when she addresses someone she doesn't actually like. You think that this is a good sign.

“So am I to assume that you don't need a ride from me? Am I to just meet you outside your apartment?” She asks, but before you can answer, John chimes in. 

“Apartment?” You can imagine the look of confusion on his face and you immediately berate yourself for lying. You then remind yourself that you did it for the good of everyone involved. 

“Yes John, Dave's current residence, unless his guardian decides otherwise.”

“Oh, right.” He still sounds confused and you feel like you've accidentally stepped on the toes of your favourite puppy. You want to explain yourself, but not while Rose has probably sensed that something is up and has pressed record while running off to get a pen and paper. 

“Oh how wonderful, she's back.” Rose says, and you can now perfectly hear Roxy's voice in the background. 

“Hey Rose, since you're... you're so, so cruel to your mamma, how 'bout you let lil Davey know, that _Bro_ wants to kn-” a hiccup cuts off her sentence, “to know, whyyy Davey-poo is calling you so late? Wonk~.” She actually says 'wonk' and you know that she's wonking at Rose right now. 

John starts to snicker and you smack his arm lightly.

Rose sighs on the other end and states quickly, “I shall be there when you arrive home, Dave.” before hanging up.

You knock your shades up as your fingers reach under to rub at your eyes. You let out a sigh and lean back, allowing your shades to fall back into place. 

“Shit, man, sorry about all this.”

“It's alright, I kinda blew you off and then forced you to come here, so I guess I had it coming.”

You try not to vocalise all of the innuendos that come from him saying that he 'blew you off', and instead focus on the inevitable shit storm headed your way.

“There is something else I wanted to say...” He starts, interrupting your train of thought. “Is this 'Bro' the reason why you didn't want me to know where you live, or did you just not want me to see your shrine dedicated to Sailor Moon?” He asks as he starts up the car. 

“Shhh, you gotta keep that shit between us bro.” 

He laughs, and you allow yourself a small smile, knowing that most of the alcohol was shocked out of your system thanks to your surprise visit to the Antarctic, so you don't have to worry about letting too much slip.

“Yo, can we turn up the heating?”

“Sure, but it doesn't work very well.” He informs you as you hear the sound of him fiddling with one of the heating dials.

The silence between you pursues for a few more minutes, enough for you to realise that you never gave John an honest answer.

“For real though,” you begin, as you hold your hands up to one of the vents dispensing a pathetic amount of warm air. “Bro can be kind of, uh, overbearing at times. So I just figured that I'd make both of our lives easier by waiting until you couldn't bear the thought of life without me before I unleashed him on your poor, unsuspecting self. That way you don't just drop me like I'm way, way too hot.” 

He snorts in amusement. “Riiiiight, well you're going to be waiting a long time for that to happen.”

“Why do you have to hurt me like this?” You bump him and he laughs that laugh that is like music to your ears. Slightly loud music, but music you'd enjoy listening to nonetheless.

Being able to joke around with him on your way home almost allows you to forget what's in store for you.

Once the car slows to a stop, and you exit it, you move around the hood in order to hold onto John's arm, continuing under John's impression that this is something you need, as opposed to your knowledge that you know exactly where you're going from here. You both move and come to a stop in front of what you assume to be Rose.

“Did I actually need to be present? You are more than aware that thanks to my caring mother, Bro will be up waiting patiently for your return.”

“As if you would miss this, you gossipy old broad.” John pushes you slightly, ever the gentleman, and you pause for a few seconds before continuing. “Did you let Roxy tell Bro what was up?”

“I withheld that information with the promise that she could accompany me here. While she was getting her shoes, I left without her. Don't worry, I also took the keys to her own car so she would be unable to drunkenly follow me.”

“You're truly doing God's work, Rose.” She doesn't respond, but instead pushes her keys that you're guessing are for your apartment into your hand. Your guess is confirmed when she does speak up. 

“You may keep them, I shall have another set made. After all, you need it more than I do. Also, thank you John, for bringing him home safely.”

“It wasn't really that hard.” You can hear the bright smile in his voice and your grip on his arm tightens.

“Really? Well I shouldn't have thought so, but considering the state that Dave is in I would have to disagree.”

Goddamn it, Rose. You want to tell her to just leave it alone, but you know that it's futile.

“There was a bit of a problem, but we took care of it! Really, it's nothing to worry about.”

“Is that why his hair is a mess, and his clothes are damp? Dave, did you just decide to take a dip into negative degree water?”

“Lay off, Rose.” You snap. You know that some people find Rose intimidating, but you don't need her to scare John away. Bro is probably going to do that for her anyway.

“I'm simply preparing you for a fraction of what you'll meet once you venture inside.” 

You sigh in defeat, because you know she's right.

“John, you should probably go.” You release his arm before Rose cuts in.

“It would perhaps be best for John if he were to leave, but that might not make the best impression on your guardian.”

You wish that she would just stop being so right all the time, it's making you look bad. 

“Fine, fine, John you can come, but don't speak unless directly spoken to, and don't tell Bro what happened.”

“If he's as bad as you've been making him out to be, then I can't make any promises.” He says, reaching back out to grab your arm.

“Oh Dave, always the Drama Queen.”

“I work that title, thanks very much.” 

Despite your attempt to lighten the mood, none of you speak as you make your way up to you apartment, only once you unlock the door does the first bit of sound make it's way to your ears. A whizzing sound that passes right by your ear and let's you know that there is definitely a katana embedded into the doorframe next to your head. But never close enough that there's a chance it might actually hit you. Bro just likes to make an entrance, even when he's not the one entering.

You hear John gasp quietly as Bro speaks.

“Oh good, ya brought company.”

You go to speak, but Bro cuts you off.

“What's with the wet clothes?”

“It was a beach party, what did you expect?”

“For ya to _not_ attempt to get hypothermia. Also, pro tip: when people skinny dip they normally take off their clothes first.”

You know he's not buying your attempts to play it off, so you give yourself time to think by pulling John further inside with you, and allowing Rose to slink in behind you and watch the unfoldings like a fly on the wall.

“Who's this?” He asks before you can give your second attempt at bullshitting your way through this.

“Hi sir! I'm John, Dave's friend.”

You can just imagine the cogs working, as he puts together that this was the John you mentioned not too long ago.

You can also tell that John's nervous, and him being nervous is making you nervous because you don't want him to say something stupid.

“Hmm. So ya wouldn't perhaps be feeling more agreeable to telling the truth than Dave, by any chance?” He asks, and you can hear his voice move towards the both of you as he speaks. The aura he brings with him is almost predatory and you internally apologise to John a million times over.

“I... I don't really remember. What happened, that is.” His voice alone tells you that his lying, and you can only imagine what kind of lies his face is giving away.

“Were ya drunk?”

“No!” He says immediately and you know that it's only a matter of time before John spills the beans.

“Do ya have short term memory loss or something?” He snaps, and you want to tell him to back off but he's going to get the answers he wants no matter what, this is just the easiest way for it to happen.

“No! I don't, it's just...”

“It's just what? Huh?” Bro is right there, and you can tell that he's using size as an intimidation tactic.

“It's just that I didn't see most of it!” Cats out of the bag, and you try to hold in a defeated sigh.

“Didn't see most of what?”

“The guys, when they came at him! I only saw the end, but I helped him as soon as I could!”

Bro lets out a long sigh as he moves away from John.

“Alright, sorry 'bout that kid. You're just the easiest one to get answers from.”

“Okay,” you finally speak up, “now that you're done traumatising him, can he go now?”

“Fine.”

You and John both move out into the hall, and you can hear Rose and Bro begin to converse in low voices.

“Jeez, you weren't kidding!” John exclaims quietly, and you don't think that he's been as badly affected by your Bro as it seemed.

“D'you see now why I didn't want you two to meet yet?” He's still holding onto your wrist, and you can feel his thumb absentmindedly running across the inside of it.

“Yes! Wow, and I thought my Dad could be intimidating.”

You huff in amusement. “Yeah, well we definitely won't be having a repeat performance.”

While you were speaking, his other hand moves up to the nape of your neck, similar to earlier that evening, and your voice almost falters.

“Hey, Dave?” 

His fingers are slightly clammy against the back of your neck, but when he trails his fingers back and forth across your skin you find that you don't really care.

When he speaks next, his voice is closer, quieter.

“I was just wondering if we were still on for next weekend?” 

You know that despite not being too intoxicated anymore, your breath must still smell like alcohol, so you try not to breathe towards his face too much, in fact, you're trying to breathe as little as you possibly can. 

“'Course we are.”

“Okay, good.” The 'good' is slightly muffled as he moves to press his face into the crook of your neck. His lips brush slightly against your skin, making your nerves spark like crazy as you try to catch what he's saying.

“I know that tonight didn't really go too well, but I'm glad that you're not too mad at me despite what a complete disaster this has been. I shouldn't have tried to get you drunk, I was just nervous after...” He trails off, and the hand on the nape of your neck reminds you of exactly what he's referring to. 

“Hey, yeah this night might've been a complete train-wreck, and sure I might smell like alcohol and sea salt, but soon that'll just be old news and we'll be kicking back, watching shitty movies, and getting fat on popcorn and soda, alright?"

“Yeah, it'll be fun.”

“Damn straight. So forget about tonight and just go home and sleep it off, yeah?”

You feel him nod against your collarbone, and pull away slowly after.

“See you later, Dave.”

“See you soon.”

You stand in the hall for a few more minutes, feeling his presence move away until you can no longer feel it anymore.

It doesn't take long for Rose to find you.

“He's been taking to you quite well, it seems.” She says, bumping her shoulder into yours.

“He's not some kind of science experiment, but yeah, it does seem that way.” You reply, bumping he shoulder back with yours.

“A word of caution, I have heard many rumours involving him and one of his friends.” She puts a sour tone on the word 'friend', but you still have to ask. 

“Vriska?” 

“Yes. There has been talk of a development in their relationship, the word ’soulmate’ has been tossed about quite a bit too. I am simply letting you know so that this once unknown piece of information could not be used against you. Whether to surprise you, or hurt you it does not matter, I just believe that it is worth you knowing.”

You stand there for a few more seconds processing this. Taking the word 'rumour' and wondering if there could be any truth to it. 

“Am I supposed to thank you?” You finally respond. 

“I don't expect you to. Also, Bro isn't angry with you, more so the individuals that did this to you.” 

“Good to know.” 

“With that, I shall be taking my leave. Goodnight, Dave.” She begins to walk away, and you quickly shout after her. 

“Say hi to Roxy for me!” 

A light laugh is all the response you get before she's gone.

Afterwards, you reluctantly find your way back into the apartment, and speak out to what feels like an empty room.

“Did you really have to throw the sword?” 

“No, but it was funny watching the kid shit his pants like that.” Bro replies from what sounds like the kitchen.

“Where is your human decency? You compassion-” something plush hits the side of your face and you immediately flinch and hit at the offending smuppet. 

“Go have a shower, you stink like salt water.” His voice is still in the kitchen, and you move closer to it, kicking the smuppet out of your path from where it had fallen. 

“That's it?” You ask, cautious and disbelieving.

“Fuck no, but you need to shower and I need to think, so come back when you're done.”

You huff in confirmation and move down the hall, counting the number of steps and feeling along the wall in order to make sure you end up in the right room.

\-----------------

Once you exit out of the stuffy bathroom in your ratty old pyjamas, Bro calls you over to the futon.

The atmosphere is strange, but not in a way that has you on edge, in fact, you'd probably even be able to say the opposite.

Once you sit down a blanket drapes itself around your shoulders, and Bro shoves a plate into your hands. When you take a bite you instantly recognise it as the toasted cheese sandwiches that he used to make for you when you were younger, after you'd had a bad day. 

“Tell me what happened.” His voice is familiarly monotonous, but his actions are embarrassingly nice, and you feel like you've gone back in time to when you were eight. The time at the beach when you'd thought you were going to drown, the end of that day had felt similar to this one. Except Bro hadn't had to question how that one had happened, he'd just been there for you.

The TV is on quietly in the background. He probably did it on purpose to make the silence less heavy, and despite you being able to recognise this as one of his pitying moments, you have missed his sandwiches, and you do begin to feel more comfortable. So even though you're going against what you'd usually do, you think that these circumstances are different, and you decide to let this one slide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for this chapter taking so incredibly long. I'll start writing the next chapter within then next few days but I'm unsure how long that might take. I'm trying to take their relationship slow, but it's so hard! But keep in mind that they are soulmates so they do have something outside of their control pulling them together. ^_^


End file.
